Sure, I’ll just link to my store’s website three times in the body of the post.

filed under Categories free comic book day, sterling silver comics 7 Comments

I thought I was going to have a longer-ish post about tomorrow’s Free Comic Book Day event here, but now that I’ve sat down to write it…well, it’s not like I haven’t churned out piles of words about Free Comic Book Day over the last few years.

There are a few minor differences in how FCBD is being handled at my shop versus what I was accustomed to at my previous place of employment. For example, at the old job we had a large area at the store devoted to in-store gaming, with lots of large tables. It was easy enough to rearrange the tables into Free Comic Dispensing Units through which to file the customers. The retail area of my current store is probably about the same size as that gaming area, and that has several fixtures in the way which is going to necessitate some rearranging to allow for FCBD table set-ups. I did a little measuring over the last couple of days, and I should be able to move things around to allow for FCBD traffic while still permitting access to product I’m actually trying to sell. The alternative is to set up tables outside for free comic giveaway, but then folks would be less likely to come into the shop and actually buy things, which brings me to my next point:

As has been pointed out, by me in past discussions of FCBD and by others, the comics given away on Free Comic Book Day aren’t actually free to retailers. It is a small cost per unit, but when you order a lot of units, it can add up. At my old position, I would order literally thousands of dollars in FCBD comics. I didn’t order quite as much for the new store, as I noted previously, but as a smaller store that’s still in the process of getting started, it remains a significant investment.

Putting that much money into FCBD was okay at my old job, though, because we always made our money back and then some by having in-store sales to encourage purchases. But then, that store is decades old and has a much deeper stock than I have now. It’s not as if I have nothing at the new shop…over the past few months I’ve managed to fill up the shelves with graphic novels, and I’ve expanded my back issue selection quite a bit. Plus, my expectations of what I would consider a successful business day for FCBD don’t need to be as high as they were at the old shop…my overhead is a lot lower, after all, so I’m hoping sales on the stock I do have will encourage sufficient interest to cover costs. I also intend to debut some bargain boxes at the event, so that will be some new goodies for my customers to poke through while also reducing some extra backstock I’ve already acquired.

This all sounds like I’m solely concerned with MONEY MONEY MONEY and, well, yes, I’m still getting this store off the ground, so “in the black” is going to be preferred to “in the red.” But even if I don’t break even on this, the important thing is getting these FCBD comics into the hands of customers…not just to expose people to different comics they might not have tried out before, but as a promotional tool for this shop, to let people in the area know, or at least remind them, “hey, if I need comics, I know where to go!”

Most of all, I hope Free Comic Book Day at my new store continues to be fun. It was always great to see huge crowds of people getting really excited about comics, and I’m certainly looking forward to maintaining that tradition at my new shop.

So, if you happen to be within, say, a 500 mile radius of Camarillo, CA, come by my store…say “hi” to me, to my girlfriend, to pal Dorian, to my dad, and to pal Nat (who will be giving away copies of Licensable Bear™ and The Factor graphic novels)! We’d all enjoy seeing you!

…So this post ended up being longer than I expected. It never fails!

I didn’t bother to link to the Jared Leto Joker pic, since I’m assuming it’s already been inflicted upon you.

filed under Categories sir-links-a-lot 10 Comments

Turned out I had the wrong link to Bully’s Ambush Bug Birthday post in last Thursday’s entry…it should have gone here, so go ahead and visit that link in case you were wondering why I was sending you to one of Bully’s Star Wars entries. Not that you shouldn’t be reading those, too.

Best wishes to Ty Templeton, who recently experienced a heart attack and reports on his own recovery in the Mighty Ty Templeton Fashion. I don’t talk enough about his work here, but I’ve been a fan of his since Stig’s Inferno (read it all here, legally, for free!), and if you can get your hands on a copy of 1987’s Amazing Heroes #111, that’s one humdinger of an interview with the man there.

Also, Cartoon Brew posted a bunch of the character one-sheets for the forthcoming CGI Peanuts movie, in case you wanted to know what real-ish hair on Snoopy and Lucy looked like. I actually am looking forward to seeing what they do with this film, and as someone who managed to survive the 3D Viewmaster Peanuts dioramas, I think I can handle the CGI versions. I do have to say I’m not a big fan of the taglines on the posters, but it’s marketing, so What Can You Do? “Dust a Move,” indeed.

And in other news…I can’t wait for Dark Knight III to come out, which is a sentiment I’m sure I share with many of you out there.

Too Much Whitespace Theater Presents…

filed under Categories charlton, pal plugging 5 Comments

…Dino #10 (June 1975):


Wow, there’s like room for almost another cover in there. Wonder what happened…artist drew pic at the wrong dimensions? Didn’t want to lose the mini-Dino insert at the edge of the cover (necessary for easy rack identification if comics were overlapped on newsstands)? Given that it was Charlton, just plain nobody cared? Who knows? But it certainly grabbed my attention, so that cover definitely did its job and who am I to question it?

In other news:

  • The latest “Nobody’s Favorite” from pal Andrew is a comic you haven’t thought of in years.

  • BobH has been presenting a lot of old Comic Reader covers on his Twitter feed of late…lot of great but forgotten pieces on those old ‘zines.

  • Oh crud, I missed Ambush Bug’s birthday, but Bully the Little Birthday-Rememberin’ Bull didn’t forget!

I’m probably about a week and a half too early for this post.

filed under Categories free comic book day 1 Comment

So reader Jon asked the other day:

“…Is your store participating in Free Comic Book Day?”

…And the answer is “yes indeedy,” my store (being Sterling Silver Comics, located in the still-beating heart of Camarillo, CA) will certainly be participating in Free Comic Book Day. I’ve been involved in every Free Comic Book Day since it started being a thing, and I’m not going to let a little thing like quitting a job I held for a decade or nine and opening up a brand new store in another town get in the way of my putting gratis funnybooks into the beckoning hands of a demanding public!

Self-promotion aside, I do have minor concerns about my debut FCBD at my shop, primarily about how much FCBD stock will be needed. At the old job, after several years of providing FCBD for that customer base, I knew just about how much I needed of everything. At the new store, well…I am less confident about how much I needed to order. Basically, I more or less based my orders on the amount of in-store traffic I get at my shop now versus the traffic I would get at the other shop. “I do about this much business at this location, which is a certain percentage of that business I would get at the other store, so I’ll order about that percentage on the FCBD comics.” …Well, that wasn’t exactly my strategy, but that was one tack I pursued in the ordering process.

“Just order thousands of everything, Mike!” Well, sure, that’s be nice, but as has been stated far and wide in the past, not just by me…the comics aren’t free to retailers. At the piece by piece price, it doesn’t seem too expensive, but when you get the entire bunch billed to you on the same invoice, particularly when you’re inclined to go as big as you can, the cost can be quite the eye-opener. There are only so much resources to go around, especially since retailers are getting their regular weekly shipments in the meantime. And for a small store like me, just starting out…even with coming up on 30 years of experience in this industry, busting the budget ain’t a smart thing to do at this point in time.

Now, it’s not as bad as all that…I got a sizable order in of the “free” books, and both preplanning and some dumb luck managed to get them in on an invoice that wasn’t too out of line with my usual invoice costs…and I’ve been bulking up on some titles with later, smaller reorders, the cost of which not even being a patch on that initial FCBD total. Ultimately, I should have plenty of comics to go around. Maybe. I hope.

I’ve done a little advertising for Free Comic Book Day, along with some posters in some strategic locations directing folks to me on that special day, so we’ll see if that gets more people in my doors. Plus, there is no telling the unpredictable pull of the word “FREE” and how many more folks will be lured in by that magic promise. I very much expect this to be quite the learning experience…I doubt I nailed the exact number of books I’m going to need on the very first try, here. At the very least, it should give be a baseline for next time.

Also, I should mention that pal Nat is going to be present at the shop that day as well, giving away and signing Licensable Bear and The Factor trade paperbacks, which is quite swell of him. My dad, my girlfriend, and even pal Dorian will be helping out for Free Comic Book Day, too, so even if nobody shows up, at least I won’t be lonely.

But do show up! I’ll be glad to see you and give you free comics!

Please don’t hotlink these gifs.

filed under Categories swamp thing 14 Comments

So this week, I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in regards to my comic collecting hobby.

…I decided not to buy some comics that featured Swamp Thing cameos.

Yes, yes, I know, I was shocked, too. Somehow or another, my Swamp Thing Sense™ began tingling as I was unboxing the week’s comics shipment, causing me to glance through the newest batch of DC’s “Convergence” event tie-ins. And, sure enough, the majority of Convergence installments this week did feature a tiny spot drawing of Swampy and a lady friend (more on that in a moment). The gimmick was that as the Bad Guy of the event was explaining the crossover’s premise to the the folks involved, you saw little portals into the various multiversal cities drawn into the event. And in each issue that pictured this array of windows, one of the portals contained an image that looked a little something like this:


That was from the Supergirl: Matrix issue, where it’s very clearly Abby standing there next to Swampy.

As opposed to this pic from the Aquaman installment:


…where that definitely isn’t Abby, or this one from Superman: Man of Steel:


…where that could be Abby, maybe, in poor lighting.

Now, given the premise of the series, it could be that the portals are presenting various versions of Swampy and a lady-pal from multiple universes, but…well, the only issue from this week’s Convergence tie-ins I was planning on getting for myself was the Green Lantern: Parallax one, and I think that’s going to have to be the representative illustration of this particular sequence for me. I was tempted to grab one of each of the tie-ins that had Swampy in it, but realized that I was going to need those copies for the shelf for my customers, rather than just hoarding them all in my own collection. So, there we go, an actual grown-up decision made for the benefit of the business rather than my own fanboyish need for completeness.

That’s not to say I won’t be getting both covers of each issue of the forthcoming Convergence: Swamp Thing mini-series. I mean, c’mon, let’s be serious here.

Herb Trimpe (1939 – 2015).

filed under Categories obituary 7 Comments


My earliest experience with Herb Trimpe’s work, at least as far as I was aware, was this issue of Marvel Super-Heroes #100. I was mostly a DC kid at the time, but I also liked buying extra-sized anniversary issues, which this was. The artwork was a lot more…grainy and lumpy and odd-looking compared to the seemingly more polished DC Comics I was reading, partially because of John Severin’s inking (a name I did know thanks to his work in Cracked). That’s not meant to be a negative description…the comic certainly captured my interest.

I became more familiar with his work as time went by, particularly after my entrance into comics retail. He was a good and dependable artist who worked on Hulk comics far longer than I’d realized, including the first appearance of Wolverine, and lived quite the eventful life even after mostly leaving the comics industry. (If you follow any link here, read that last one.)

Of interest to folks who may recall Trimpe’s ’90s work is this entry in Brian Cronin’s “Comic Book Legends Revealed” column, which Brian wrote directly in response to my long-held belief that Trimbe was asked to change his classic art style to one more closely emulating the then-popular “Image Comics” style. Read that article to hear the truth of the matter straight from the Trimpe’s mouth. (HINT: I may have been incorrect.)

So long, Herb.

The devil made me do it.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, television 4 Comments

So the big hoohar over the last couple of days is the new Daredevil TV series, all thirteen episodes of which were unleashed on Friday and, apparently, everyone on the planet except yours truly somehow managed to burn through every one in the first couple of hours they were available.

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate slightly, but while I was workin’ hard for the money at my store (that would be Sterling Silver Comics, located in the shining heart of Camarillo, CA), all the rest of youse guys were relaxing in your easy chairs, a cool drink in one hand and probably another cool drink in your other hand, using your toesies on your smartphones to Twitter and Facebook at your pals to let them know what episode you’re on and to spoil the shocking cameo appearances of Odin and Squirrel Girl in the last episode.

Phooey sez I. I’m going to spoil the end of Frank Miller’s Spirit movie, and see how you like it! (And I know it’ll be a spoiler, because none of you had the good sense to experience this masterpiece.)

…Ah, okay, I’m not as bent out of shape about it as all that. Some of y’all are all excitable-like about this Daredevil show, which has turned out to be pretty good, so I can’t blame you for your enthusiasm. I’m only through episode 4, but this is shaping up to be an interesting, if surprisingly violent (for a Marvel product) program. I saw one of my Twitter pals describe it (or retweet someone describing it) as a 13-hour superhero movie, which I’m sure is certainly the effect generated by grinding through every episode one after another. I’m experiencing it with long-ish intermissions, but I suspect I’ll have a similar opinion by the end.

At the very least, it’s likely better than whatever the end product of that other Daredevil show might have been, as seen in this PROGRESSIVE RUIN FLASHBACK! Though, on second thought, that show could have been fantastic in its own right.

• • •

In other news: sorry about the Low Content Mode lately…turns out working a shop (that shop being Sterling Silver Comics, still located in the still-shining heart of Camarillo, CA) by yourself seven days a week can take a lot out of you, so I haven’t had a lot of energy to generate content here. I’m not going away…as I promised you all a while back, barring my surprising demise in a shocking deep sea diving accident, I will give you advance warning if I’m shutting down the blog. Which, by the way, I have no intention of doing. I’m just letting the batteries recharge a bit.

You can usually find me annoying anyone who made the mistake of following me on Twitter, so feel free to check in on me there if you somehow believe I’m more tolerable in smaller doses. But I promise, I’ll still be here on this site doing whatever it is I think I’m doing. Thanks to all of you for still reading.